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their fixed lot. In time of pain or trouble, therefore, they submit silently with the silence of
despair. Such submission, however, does not spring from love to God or from a realization of His
great love towards men; therefore it is not acceptable in the sight of Him who knows men's hearts
and from whom no secrets are hid. Nor can the helpless submission of despair, like the helplessness
of a corpse in the hands of the washer 1 of the dead, give true rest, peace and
consolation to any man's heart. How entirely different from this is the trust and self-surrender of
a true Christian! This trust springs from the love for God which reigns in his heart, and this love
enables him to believe and understand that God loves him far more than any earthly father loves his
child, and that, so loving him, God Most High is desirous of his salvation and true happiness.
Knowing this, he trusts himself fully and gladly to the care of the all-wise and all-loving God.
Under all circumstances, therefore, by the grace of God's Holy Spirit, the true Christian abides in
peace and contented reliance upon his heavenly Father: and thus, even in pain and sorrow, a
wellspring of happiness leaps up in his
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THE RESULTS OF SALVATION
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heart. Accordingly it is written in the holy Scriptures:—
My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD;
Neither be weary of his reproof:
For whom the LORD loveth he reproveth;
Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.1
And again it is written in another place: 'All 2 chastening seemeth for the present to
be not joyous, but grievous: yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been
exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.' And again, St. Paul says: 'I 3
reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which
shall be revealed to us-ward.' So in another Epistle he says: 'Our 4 light affliction,
which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which
are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.' Therefore it is that the
Apostle (حواري) James says to the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ: 'Count 5 it all joy, my
brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh
patience . . .Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall
receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that
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